More than 130 regional residents attended the Boorowa District Landscape Guardians Public Meeting held at the Boorowa Ex-Services Club on Monday April 11 to discuss a range of issues regarding the proposed Rugby wind farm.

Charlie Arnott from the Boorowa District Landscape Guardians said the potential for wind turbines to affect landowner property values and potential litigation issues were discussed by several speakers at the meeting.

“Our second speaker, John Carter from Crookwell, has been living next to Australia’s first wind farm for 14 years,” Mr Arnott said.

“John spoke about how it has affected the community and his wife’s health. He was very scathing of positioning of wind turbines in rural communities.”

Crookwell landowners Jennifer and Humphry Price-Jones spoke about their experiences after they and a number of other families pursued legal action against a wind farm developer to prevent wind turbines being constructed on their land through the Land & Environment Court last year.

Mr Arnott said several of those in the audience were angered after they learnt the families had lost their case, and a judge ruled that families would be forced to sell their land to developers if they wished to receive any compensation.

“In theory, other landowners and I could have to make that decision and that would be a terrible thing to happen,” Mr Arnott said.

“Developers were favoured over landholders in that incident. The rights of those farmers were taken from them. People in Boorowa should know that.”

The next Boorowa District Landscape Guardians Public Meeting is scheduled to be held in the coming weeks.

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